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Derbyshire Householders
(1327)Tax return on goods and land held by all lay persons (i. e., non-clergy) in Derbyshire

BONS. Cost: £6.00.

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Traders in Canterbury
(1392-1592)No man or woman could trade in the city of Canterbury without having obtained 'freedom' of the city, unless they paid an annual fee to do so. Admissions of freemen were recorded on the Chamberlains' Accounts of the city, which were prepared annually from Lady Day (25 March) to Lady Day until 1752, and thereafter each set runs from 1 January to 31 December. The accounts for 1392 are incomplete, but thereafter until 1800 there is a complete series except for the years 1455 to 1457 and the year 1552-3. Joseph Meadows Cowper, Honorary Librarian to the Corporation, transcribed and privately printed in 1904 the lists of the Intrantes - those persons, not being free of the city, who paid the annual fine to trade - for the period 1392 to 1592. The names are arranged by ward (Burgate, Newyngate, Westgate, Worgate and Northgate, and give full name, (sometimes) occupation, and fee paid.

BONS. Cost: £4.00.

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Middlesex Sessions
(1603-1625)Incidents from the Middlesex Sessions Books. These are abstracts of sessional orders, minutes of criminal cases, memoranda and other entries of record taken from the three volumes of Gaol Delivery Register, four volumes of Sessions of Peace Register and two volumes of Process Books of Indictments for the county of Middlesex from the reign of king James I. The references at the end of each item indicate the volume in question, the abbreviations being G. D. for Gaol Delivery, S. P. for Sessions of Peace, and S. O. T. for Session of Oyer and Terminer; occasionally preceded by S. for Special or G. for general, or followed by R. for Roll or Reg. for Register. It should be noted that, in the case of 'true bills' or indictments, the abstract starts with the date on which the offence took place, the date of the conviction &c. being at the end of the entry.

BONS. Cost: £4.00.

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Members of London livery companies
(1791-1797)One of the most useful sections of the Universal British Directory, nominally produced in 1791 but including later material, is a List of the Livery of London, giving the names and addresses of members of the London livery companies, together with their professions. As a glance at the sample will show, the companies and the professions only sometimes match, so this is an invaluable key as a first step in tracing the relevant company records for a London trader of this period

BONS. Cost: £6.00.

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Traders and Merchants in London
(1797)The Universal British Directory was published in five volumes, starting in 1791. The professions included in the London section are very diverse: the addresses are mostly from central London. The publication of the provincial volumes took several years, so this London supplement was added, compiled about 1797.

BONS. Cost: £6.00.

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British merchant seamen
(1835-1840)At this period, the foreign trade of ships plying to and from the British isles involved about 150,000 men on 15,000 ships; and the coasting trade about a quarter as many more. A large proportion of the seamen on these ships were British subjects, and so liable to be pressed for service in the Royal Navy; but there was no general register by which to identify them, so in 1835 parliament passed a Merchant Seamen's Registration Bill. Under this act a large register of British seamen was compiled, based on ships' crew lists gathered in British and Irish ports, and passed up to the registry in London. A parliamentary committee decided that the system devised did not answer the original problem, and the original register was abandoned after less than two years: the system was then restarted in this form, with a systematic attempt to attribute the seamen's (ticket) numbers, and to record successive voyages. The register records the number assigned to each man; his name; age; birthplace; quality (S = seaman, &c.); and the name and official number of his ship, with the date of the crew list (usually at the end of a voyage). Most of the men recorded were born in the British Isles, but not all. The system was still very cumbersome, because the names were amassed merely under the first two letters of surname; an attempt was made to separate out namesakes by giving the first instance of a name (a), the second (b), and so on. During 1840 this series of ledgers was abandoned, and a new set started with names grouped together by surname. BT 112/7

BONS. Cost: £8.00.

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British Army officers
(1841)The Royal Kalendar lists general and field officers of the British Army - five Field Marshals, 95 generals, 138 major-generals, 310 colonels, 637 lieutenant-colonels, 697 majors, in order of precedence according to year of precedence, and with the regiment indicated for each; then there are aides-de-camp to her Majesty queen Victoria; retired officers specially allowed to retain their ranks; and then the queen's land forces, set out regiment by regiment and battalion by battalion, naming the colonel, lieutenant-colonel and major for each, officers of the British garrisons, and of the Tower of London; and the officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (including the Field Train) and the Corps of Royal Engineers, by rank.